Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with windows

Help with buying a new mid-range windows gaming PC?

cortex — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:37:45 -0800

I'm looking at purchasing a new PC for gaming, wanting to spend between $1000 and $1500 total, would prefer not to put it together myself, and am waaaay out of the loop on hardware at this point, particularly graphic cards. I've been pricing out desktop builds from some of the major manufacturers this morning and I'm realizing that while I'm comfortable making some basic price/performance calls as far as CPU and memory, I'm completely out of touch with the GPU market and need some guidance.

I'd like to be able to play current releases without flinching, at crisp resolutions. I'll be happy with non-distracting performance: 30fps is great, 60fps is not something I'm going to care about so much.

I'd rather just buy a box from someone and have done with it than do much work myself inside the case, but as far as buying my own GPU to install in an otherwise standard box that's certainly not outside my comfort zone.

Looking at Dell's builds for both their normal beefy desktop line and their Alienware stuff, it seems like a lot of the latter is Ooh, Shiny packaging. I don't need a pretty box. But options for GPUs are pretty slim on non-gamer boxes, which has me wondering if going in that direction for a reasonably bullshit-free desktop build and then slotting in my own card is the smarter move.

Any specific advice on targeting a good-enough-for-current-games (biggies on my list include Dragon Age now, Mass Effect 2 and Diablo 3 when they drop, for example) GPU on the saner side of the price/performance break? Any particular good deals/providers for a solid out-of-the-box system in my price range?

How to let the MBP see the SBS2003 based files!

Fuzzy Dog — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:56:55 -0800

[Mac - Windows Filter] What is the best way to access files on a Windows Small Business Server 2003 from my MPB? So I landed an awesome gig in my field with a great organization. They need me, I want to be here. Win, win, right? Well, they keep all their materials on a MS Windows Small Business Server 2003 - and are all windows users, I am a mac user. I need to get to the files on the SBS2003 from my MBP. What is the best way?

I have a network log in. Should I mount the SBS directory in finder? If so how? Should I install Parallels and connect that way? If I go the Parallels route can I open the files I need access to (mostly word, excel and some graphics files) on the Mac side with all the associated Mac-Awesomeness?

Please keep in mind that I know nothing about SBS! (But have full access if I need it.)

Help hive mind, I need your technical expertise and experience. Thanks in advance!

Details: New this summer Unibody MBP 10.5.8

Windows

larry_darrell — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:11:54 -0800

Can someone explain to the layperson why the Windows op. sys. has no competition yet. Why is it not like any other consumer product?

Heads Up for both Mac and Windows?

rokusan — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:11:08 -0800

Is there a way to make one universal desktop/dashboard for both Mac and Windows? Is there a way to package and deliver desktop gadgets or widgets for Windows and OS X all in the same bundle, or some other combination that can provide for a single universal download?

I've already made a few for myself, but only for OSX, and that's the end of my experience with them. But now I'd like to wrap a few up, polish them a bit, and let clients use them to monitor things too, because I find that a meaningful amount of my time is spent just checking one of them and reporting back to a client question with the result. So I would like to give them a freebie timesaver that will allow them to monitor the info themselves via a desktop doodad.

If they were all OSX users I'd be done now, but these clients aren't all very tech savvy, and they use a mixture of Macs and PCs. I don't want a support nightmare, and I'd prefer not maintaining two different thingies.

The complexity of the gizmos I am interested in would be pretty low: just HTML/Javascript doodads that display info easily sucked from web servers that I can control. (That is, HTTP requests are made for info from mydomain.com, not from Yahoo's stock quotes or anything foreign, so the HTML or RSS or whatever that is served back will always be trusted, reliable and constant.)

The UI needed is nothing fancier than what one gets from Safari's existing "Web Clipping", in fact (just an up to date or 'live' view of some info), but it needs to work as Vista/Win7 desktop gadgets too, and Safari's clips don't do that in Windows.

I know that most such gadgety things are just HTML and JS, so there's no Windows or Mac native code there, so is there any way to avoid making and maintaining two different packages, here?

Also, are there third options that need addressing? Does Konfabulator/or Yahoo Widgets have much of a user base, or can that be ignored in favor of the built-in widgets in recent Windows?

Free/Open Source Scan-to-PDF Software?

cowbellemoo — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:20:19 -0800

What's the best free or open source software (for Windows XP) which will scan multiple pages in a row and output a PDF with zero fuss? I don't really like the software that came with the scanner and I don't want to pay for Acrobat Pro. Currently I'm using OpenOffice Draw, which works fine except for having a few too many mouse clicks between importing each page as a scanned picture -- which are annoying when I'm trying to concentrate on something else while I scan a bunch of things in.

Ideally I'd like to just place a new page, close the lid, click a button, scan, rinse, repeat. That's basically how Acrobat Pro does it, but is there a free/OS alternative that behaves the same way?

How to set a window behind another in windows 7?

dolemite01 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:32:10 -0800

How to have a window in the back while another in the front in Windows 7, much like a mac. I have seen mac users have a window, like Word open and then in the behind it they have firefox and they can scroll through the tiny section of firefox while word is the 'main window'
How can i replicate this in windows?

Thanks in advance!

Help me repair this Windows installation, with minimal tools.

jbickers — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:29:18 -0800

Trying to fix a friend's Windows laptop, which is behaving strangely. So I need to get this thing working for a friend by Monday morning, and it is acting very strange. I had put a suite of freeware diagnostic/repair tools on a USB stick in the hopes of using them, but none of the USB ports are recognized.

So I went into control panel > hardware > device manager, and that screen is totally blank. It's like there are a whole host of basic Windows services that have been somehow turned off.

Another possible clue: When I try to run the Dell Support Center built-in diagnostic, it tells me "The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed ... the Windows Installer is not correctly installed."

She doesn't have her Windows XP disc, so a reinstall is not possible. Anything else I can attempt? Any other clues I can look for that would help figure out what's up?

(Win XP Media Center edition, if that helps, on a Dell Inspiron 6000)

On-Screen Keyboard for Windows 7

wintermute2_0 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:23:21 -0800

How can I get my on-screen keyboard to work in 64-bit Windows 7? I'm currently running Windows XP and am finding it hard to resist the eye candy of Windows 7. I have the hardware to run the 64-bit flavor, but I have a compatibility concern. I use an on-screen keyboard called WiViK and I couldn't get it to run in the 64-bit beta. The WiViK states that it will run in 32-bit Vista, but not 64-bit.

WiViK hasn't had meaningful updates and the publisher doesn't seem too interested in future revisions. Am I stuck in a 32-bit world or is there any way to hack the code to make it 64-bit compatible? Barring that, are there other fully-featured Windows on-screen keyboards (word prediction, abbreviation expansion) that are 64-bit?

I'm thinking I should just start an open-source project to create a better and more flexible OSK. Any takers?

How do I change default scan settings?

MrMulan — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:44:46 -0800

How can I reduce the file size of a scanned document in Windows XP? I have narrowed it down to something in the XP OS.

Boss has a Canon MFP that would scan to his PC. Test scan file would be about 300Kb pdf.
Boss got a new PC. I installed the same Canon software and used the same settings his old PC used, except now the actual scan takes longer and the file is over 1,000Kb.
I uninstalled the Canon software on both machines and used the built in Windows fax and scan app...same thing...old PC creates a fast scan with small output file, new PC creates a slower scan with a larger output file.
Again, all settings, resolution, ect. are the same on both machines.

I know there is free third party software to reduce after the fact, but I don't want to go there and give him another step to do.

Can't find anything that applies to this scenario on G. As always, thanks in advance.

Looking for the perfect laptop for traveling

Afroblanco — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:31:20 -0800

Looking for the perfect laptop for traveling. Priorities are durability, lightness, and battery life, in that order. Performance is not too important, but it must run Windows 7 like a champ. Willing to consider netbooks. Can spend up to $2000, but obviously I would like to spend no more than I absolutely have to.

Are Windows 7 Professional 32 and 64 bit serials the same?

n3rt — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:19:09 -0800

Are Windows 7 32bit and 64 bit serials the same? I've just purchased an OEM of Windows 7 Professional 32 bit for my laptop, which I've since [before installation] upgraded with more RAM. I can now happily run as a 64 bit installation. I have a 64 bit version of 7 coming as an OEM with a new desktop - my question is twofold? Will a 32 bit serial work with a 64 bit installation, and legally - if it does work - am I allowed to install it? I do have two Win 7 licenses...

Why do large file downloads stall (with no error message or any feedback)?

bradn — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:49:42 -0800

Why do large file downloads stall (with no error message or any feedback)? I am not sure how to troubleshoot this.

Pertinent info: Win7 (also had the problem with previous OS, Server 2008), Firewall disabled, Gigabyte motherboard with LAN (Nforce 570 SLI), Asus router with DD-WRT installed behind an AT&T U-verse 2Wire RG.

I can't seem to download a large file. Anything in the single MBs is fine, but larger files stall out in both Firefox and IE. The progress meter remains still, "x minutes remaining -- xx of xx MB (xx KB/sec)" remains still, no error message or timeout of any kind. It will stay this way for days. Incedentally, there is no issue with torrent downloads in Vuse. I am also having trouble with Netflix Watch Instantly (via WDTV Live) giving me "Your internet connection has slowed" errors, and think that it might be related.

I did a few random trials: Foxit Reader (5.1MB) downloaded fine. Batman Arkham Asylum Demo (2.0 GB) currently stalled at 62.9MB, and two attempts at XBMC for Windows (81.1MB) stalled at 25.9 and 26.7.

I tried disabling the firewall and AVG antivirus. I updated the Nforce drivers.

Any other ideas?

Why does my Wacom pointer freak out and go jumpy?

cadge — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:33:52 -0800

Wacom tablet (Graphire2) on Win2K machine. Sometimes the pointer goes nuts and becomes jumpy and unusable until I unplug and replug the tablet. Drivers appear to be up to date. Any thoughts on why this happens? I have a Wacom Graphire2 4x5 tablet hooked up to my Windows 2000 PC. I use the stylus/tablet instead of a mouse, so it's in constant use. It's plugged into one of the machine's USB ports (previously one of the front ports, now one on the back).

Occasionally, the pointer just WIGS OUT. It suddenly relocates to another spot on the screen and becomes jumpy and overly sensitive (an ordinary small movement makes it fly to the other side of the screen). It stays like this until I unplug and replug the tablet.

I don't know what causes this; sometimes it happens after I bring the machine back up from being on standby, and sometimes it happens if I just haven't been mousing for a few minutes. This tends to happen once or several times per workday.

I tried installing more recent drivers from Wacom's site, but they didn't appear to affect the problem. The tablet is 5-6 years old, but this problem has been happening for a couple of years. It also happens on my home computer, which has the same setup (5-6 year old Graphire2/Win2K).

Any thoughts on what might be causing this? It's driving me up a wall!

Skip the Black Friday Madness?

dyno04 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:51:20 -0800

I am in need of a new desktop computer. I am wondering if I should wait until Black Friday and brave the crowds or take advantage of some of the Windows 7 deals this week. I live in the Twin Cities, MN metro area if that makes a difference.

Will Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit utilize 8GB of RAM?

omaralarifi — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:08:46 -0800

Just for confirmation, will Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit utilize 8GB of RAM? I already own a laptop with windows vista ultimate 64-bit with 8GB installed. I just want to confirm if Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit will utilize 8GB of RAM or I should buy a 64-bit version.
I am not welling to buy an upgrade version but a full retail version.

Clear a hard-drive, copy another onto it, then clear that other drive

The Devil Tesla — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:41:26 -0800

Looking for step by step instructions on how to clear a hard drive and then copy one drive (that boots Windows 7) to that drive I just cleared, then clear the old boot drive. My case currently has two drives, one connected by SATA and the other by PATA. Though this wasn't my intention, when I upgraded from Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit my old boot drive, the SATA one, was left untouched and the new OS was installed on the PATA drive.

I would really like to switch things around so the SATA drive is the boot drive and the PATA one is secondary, like it used to be. This is because the PATA one is a lot older than the SATA one. Everything on the SATA drive (the secondary one at the moment) is expendable and I'd like to clear that and then copy the currently bootable PATA one to the SATA drive and then clear it, resulting in the SATA drive being the primary one and the PATA being a big blank secondary drive.

I know next to nothing about this kind of thing, so I would be eternally grateful if someone could point me to the software I need to be able to do this and how I would set up this kind of operation on it. I've gotten a vague sense of how I should do this from other AskMes and a few howtos, but I'm not confidant yet that I could do it and nothing would go wrong.

Also, I'd much prefer if I could do this without buying any more hardware or software. I do have blank cds, dvds and a flash drive.

In a perfect world the solution would be to set things up, press go, and then walk away for a while until it's done, but yea, any help you can give me would make me super happy.

I can see the solution to this problem taking a bit more effort than some AskMes. If it does (or hell, even if it doesn't but you give me the information I need) I will e-mail you ten adorable pictures of bunnies as a thank-you gift.

I'm trying to win a bet

metacort — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:30:50 -0800

Is Windows 7 an upgraded version of Vista (like Snow Leopard presumably is of Leopard) or completely re-built from the bottom up?

WIN XP Directory Tree Software help?

dorgla — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:13:54 -0800

Need software which enables saving my Windows XP file directory tree and shows subfolders as a .gif, .jpg or .bmp. Google found some software which saves it as a text file, but I want the visuals of the actual folders in the tree structure.

We need to argue for a local server

scruss — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:32:12 -0800

Our office is losing hours of productivity a week due to networking decisions from head office. We'd like to price out a server to replace the dodgy technology that's been foisted on us. Not surprisingly, HQ gets kind of defensive if we use that language. Please help me cost out a server, and make it seem like it was their idea all along. I work in a regional office of an energy company. Head office is many thousands of kilometres away. Head office likes to keep complete control of their data centrally, so offices that used to have servers were replaced by WAFS boxes on the end of a 10Mbit link.

Since the WAFS boxes went in, users in remote offices have had nothing but trouble. Accessing files over the network feels like dialup speed. MS applications zone out for minutes on end thinking about autosaves. We have been known to start applications, go down to the coffee shop, come back, and the application might just have initialized. The WAFS machines themselves are unreliable, needing replaced every few months and rebooting weekly.

Our office has about fifteen professionals in it - engineers, lawyers, developers, environmental and admin staff. We're told that we never quite manage to fully fill our 10Mbit allocation, and that our connection maintains a supposedly quite speedy ping time of 50ms to Head office.

We're not digging the slowness. We estimate that we're each losing several hours per week waiting for the system. Some users have taken to working from home, as using a Citrix connection over DSL to head office is many times faster than running local applications in the office. We've lost staff over this issue.

Head office is all about the centralization, though. So much so that, a couple of years back, a fire alarm knocked out our central data server for 18 hours and we had no offsite failover. We'd need to make a very good case that having a local server would be cheaper than what we're using now.

Head office admits that the WAFS didn't deliver all it was supposed, and are looking at a similar technology from a different vendor. We're worried it will be a big spend with the same result - slow performance, and yet more technology that local techs barely understand. We have some allies in IT at head office, but not the ear of the head of IT.

So just how much would a robust small server with local support and backup cost for a 15 user office? We're in a big Canadian city with good access to service and support.

Windows 7 for Less (in Canada)

smitt — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:09:57 -0800

Is there anything like Win741 for students in Canada? Does anyone know of ways to save on buying Windows 7 in Canada, either as a full time student or not?
I don't qualify for the Upgrade edition, and want to buy Windows 7 Pro. I don't think I want the OEM version, because I upgrade my computer every year or two and don't want to have to buy it multiple times.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

Reinstall Windows dealing with NTFS permissions

chrisch — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:58:21 -0800

I'm a few weeks away from rebuilding my PC with Windows 7 and need help understanding how to deal with NTFS permissions. I'm a few weeks away from rebuilding my PC with Windows 7. I'm currently using the release candidate of Windows 7 with the following drive configuration:

C:\ - Windows and applications (some data)
D:\ - data drive (including "D:\My Documents\")
Q:\ - external backup drive (Drobo)

All drives are formatted with NTFS and backups of selected directories to Q:\ are done with rsync. I've noticed that some directories on Q:\ are not accessible by the Guest account, meaning that permissions are not consistent on that drive. The machine isn't on a domain.

My plan is to wipe C:\ and reinstall Windows, and leave D:\ and Q:\ alone. My questions are:

- How do I reinstall and prevent ugly situations with NTFS file permissions (i.e., permission denied)?
- Is there a best practices guide for syncing to my backup drive to ease future accessibility from another computer?

Many thanks!

Text Message Problems

Zeker — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:48:23 -0800

I have a Touch Pro (Fuze) on WinMo 6.5. From my understanding, my text messages are being handled by pocket outlook. Can I use something besides outlook? I HATE HATE HATE HATE pocket outlook. Viewing multimedia messages is such a pain in the butt, it doesn't just display them as they should be, but rather as separate elements (i.e., click this impossibly small icon to view your picture. Jump this loophole to save it, now click here to read the accompanied text, back, now click here to listen to the accompanied music file). Also, sending text messages is horrible. Let me explain why...

Reception sucks indoors. So if a text message fails to send, this is what would typically happen on any other phone...

Message fails >>> message stays in outbox >>> phone keeps an eye out for reception >>> if there's reception, message is re-sent automatically >>> success!

Here's what outlook does...

Message fails >>> message I typed is sent from OUTBOX to MY INBOX (instead of staying in the outbox) >>> I need to click on my message and hit FORWARD >>> erase MY NAME under RECIPIENT NAME >>> re-type the recipient's name >>> keep my finger on send until I see 1 bar of reception >>> hit send, hope it goes through >>> cry in shame of spending 3 minutes to resend 1 message >>> kill myself.

I've tried actually moving the message from the inbox to the outbox, but it gives me an error saying it can't be done.

Who else is annoyed by this? Is there a setting to change the way this behaves? Or better yet, is there a replacement text message manager that works better and actually lets me view my MMS messages nicely? I'd appreciate some help please :D

Batch transfer of ~1TB from 8 drives over LAN

saysthis — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:03:02 -0800

Are there any better tools for transferring about a terabyte of files over a local network than just dragging and dropping in Windows? Specifically, is there a tool that can pick up and double-check files once they've been copied over? I'm moving all my stuff to a new NAS. Lots of stuff scattered all over a lot of computers, and I'm wondering if there's a way to "automate" this, rather than just drag and drop. As I'm doing some of these transfers over wireless, the network occasionally drops, and the transfer gets interrupted, which means I have to start all over again. I'd love to find a software with some kind of "transfer resume", so I can just start it and forget it instead of checking it every hour or so.

Error installing Vista SP2

sailoreagle — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:28:56 -0800

I've a computer running Windows Vista 64-bit SP1. Attempting to install SP2 yields an error of "ERROR_NO_PROC_SLOTS(0x80070059)". Googling for the error code has found some people having the same issue, but no working solution at all. Any help? I can provide hardware specs / info if necessary.

window insulation film

6550 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:21:53 -0800

Is there an inexpensive source for the heat-shrink window insulation film in rolls or larger quantities than the standard kit? I put up the window insulation last year but, because of the size and shape of my windows, each box only did about three windows. Ace does carry a less expensive kit but it seems like there should be rolls somewhere, that I could put up with regular double-sided tape.